The Bigger Picture: A Project-Based Course on EnvironmentalGeophysics and Geochemistry

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A project-based course in environmental field methods will be develmped for students in the second year of earth science programs, creating a new context for students' first encounter with more complex, and in particular, more quantitative science topics. By teaching geophysical and geochemical field methods through a sequence of in-depth studies of current environmental problems, presented in their historical and social context, we hope to keep students, especially women and minorities, in the quantitative science pipeline and make clear their own potential for such work. Students will work through in-depth environmental "case-studies", or project modules, on topics such as salt water intrusion in coastal Florida, uranium mining remediation in the Navajo Nation, and eutrophication in a Georgia estuary. Students will process a subset of the data, combine data sets, analyze and interpret the data, define limits to their interpretations, and make and justify policy decisions. The course will be built around six or seven sequential modules, with each module designed to follow a classroom introduction to the relevant field methods. We plan to add supporting materials to these modules so that they can also be used as individual case studies in environmental geology, hydrology, geophysics, and geochemistry courses, and will be in a form that can be disseminated on the WWW, CD-rom, and hardcopy. This work will be a collaborative effort by four faculty at disparate institutions (College of William and Mary, Navajo Community College, and Georgia Tech). Each of us will design one or two modules, working with undergraduates at our home institutions. We will collaboratively review and revise each module as we develop the course as a whole. Thus students will encounter a wider range of both geographic settings and cultural contexts for environmental problems than is currently found in quantitative geo-science courses.